The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories (14 page)

So it was more than pleasant, it was important, this awakening in the great high room which held the great high bed on which she lay, small but exalted. It was important because to Helga Crane it was the day, so she decided, to which all the sad forlorn past had led, and from which the whole future was to depend. This, then, was where she belonged. This was her proper setting. She felt consoled at last for the spiritual wounds of the past.

A discreet knocking on the tall paneled door sounded. In response to Helga’s “Come in” a respectful rosy-faced maid entered and Helga lay for a long minute watching her adjust the shutters. She was conscious, too, of the girl’s sly curious glances at her, although her general attitude was quite correct, willing and disinterested. In New York, America, Helga would have resented this sly watching. Now, here, she was only amused. Marie, she reflected, had probably never seen a Negro outside the pictured pages of her geography book.

Another knocking. Aunt Katrina entered, smiling at Helga’s quick, lithe spring from the bed. They were going out to tea, she informed Helga. What, the girl inquired, did one wear to tea in Copenhagen, meanwhile glancing at her aunt’s dark purple dress and bringing forth a severely plain blue crepe frock. But no! It seemed that that wouldn’t at all do.

“Too sober,” pronounced Fru Dahl. “Haven’t you something lively, something bright?” And, noting Helga’s puzzled glance at her own subdued costume, she explained laughingly: “Oh, I’m an old married lady, and a Dane. But you, you’re young. And you’re a foreigner, and different. You must have bright things to set off the color of your lovely brown skin. Striking things, exotic things. You must make an impression.”

“I’ve only these,” said Helga Crane, timidly displaying her wardrobe on couch and chairs. “Of course I intend to buy here. I didn’t want to bring over too much that might be useless.”

“And you were quite right too. Umm. Let’s see. That black there, the one with the cerise and purple trimmings. Wear that.”

Helga was shocked. “But for tea, Aunt! Isn’t it too gay? Too—too—
outré?”

“Oh dear, no. Not at all, not for you. Just right.” Then after a little pause she added: “And we’re having people in to dinner tonight, quite a lot. Perhaps we’d better decide on our frocks now.” For she was, in spite of all her gentle kindness, a woman who left nothing to chance. In her own mind she had determined the role that Helga was to play in advancing the social fortunes of the Dahls of Copenhagen, and she meant to begin at once.

At last, after much trying on and scrutinizing, it was decided that Marie should cut a favorite emerald-green velvet dress a little lower in the back and add some gold and mauve flowers, “to liven it up a bit,” as Fru Dahl put it.

“Now that,” she said, pointing to the Chinese-red dressing gown in which Helga had wrapped herself when at last the fitting was over, “suits you. Tomorrow we’ll shop. Maybe we can get something that color. That black and orange thing there is good too, but too high. What a prim American maiden you are, Helga, to hide such a fine
back and shoulders. Your feet are nice too, but you ought to have higher heels—and buckles.”

Left alone, Helga began to wonder. She was dubious, too, and not a little resentful. Certainly she loved color with a passion that perhaps only Negroes and Gypsies know. But she had a deep faith in the perfection of her own taste, and no mind to be bedecked in flaunting flashy things. Still—she had to admit that Fru Dahl was right about the dressing gown. It did suit her. Perhaps an evening dress. And she knew that she had lovely shoulders, and her feet
were
nice.

When she was dressed in the shining black taffeta with its bizarre trimmings of purple and cerise, Fru Dahl approved her and so did Herr Dahl. Everything in her responded to his “She’s beautiful; beautiful!” Helga Crane knew she wasn’t that, but it pleased her that he could think so, and say so. Aunt Katrina smiled in her quiet, assured way, taking to herself her husband’s compliment to her niece. But a little frown appeared over the fierce mustache, as he said in his precise, faintly feminine voice: “She ought to have earrings, long ones. Is it too late for Garborg’s? We could call up.”

And call up they did. And Garborg, the jeweler, in Fredericks-gaarde waited for them. Not only were earrings bought, long ones brightly enameled, but glittering shoe buckles and two great bracelets. Helga’s sleeves being long, she escaped the bracelets for the moment. They were wrapped to be worn that night. The earrings, however, and the buckles came into immediate use and Helga felt like a veritable savage as they made their leisurely way across the pavement from the shop to the waiting motor. This feeling was intensified by the many pedestrians who stopped to stare at the queer dark creature, strange to their city. Her cheeks reddened, but both Herr and Fru Dahl seemed oblivious of the stares or the audible whispers in which Helga made out the one frequently recurring word
“sorte”
which she recognized as the Danish word for “black.”

Her Aunt Katrina merely remarked: “A high color becomes you, Helga. Perhaps tonight a little rouge—” To which her husband nodded in agreement and stroked his mustache meditatively. Helga Crane said nothing.

They were pleased with the success she was at the tea, or rather
the coffee—for no tea was served—and later at dinner. Helga herself felt like nothing so much as some new and strange species of pet dog being proudly exhibited. Everyone was very polite and very friendly, but she felt the massed curiosity and interest, so discreetly hidden under the polite greetings. The very atmosphere was tense with it. “As if I had horns, or three legs,” she thought. She was really nervous and a little terrified, but managed to present an outward smiling composure. This was assisted by the fact that it was taken for granted that she knew nothing or very little of the language. So she had only to bow and look pleasant. Herr and Fru Dahl did the talking, answered the questions. She came away from the coffee feeling that she had acquitted herself well in the first skirmish. And, in spite of the mental strain, she had enjoyed her prominence.

If the afternoon had been a strain, the evening was something more. It was more exciting too. Marie had indeed “cut down” the prized green velvet, until, as Helga put it, it was “practically nothing but a skirt.” She was thankful for the barbaric bracelets, for the dangling earrings, for the beads about her neck. She was even thankful for the rouge on her burning cheeks and for the very powder on her back. No other woman in the stately pale blue room was so greatly exposed. But she liked the small murmur of wonder and admiration which rose when Uncle Poul brought her in. She liked the compliments in the men’s eyes as they bent over her hand. She liked the subtle half-understood flattery of her dinner partners. The women too were kind, feeling no need for jealousy. To them this girl, this Helga Crane, this mysterious niece of the Dahls, was not to be reckoned seriously in their scheme of things. True, she was attractive, unusual, in an exotic, almost savage way, but she wasn’t one of them. She didn’t at all count.

Near the end of the evening, as Helga sat effectively posed on a red satin sofa, the center of an admiring group, replying to questions about America and her trip over, in halting, inadequate Danish, there came a shifting of the curious interest away from herself. Following the others’ eyes, she saw that there had entered the room a tallish man with a flying mane of reddish-blond hair. He was wearing a
great black cape, which swung gracefully from his huge shoulders, and in his long, nervous hand he held a wide soft hat. An artist, Helga decided at once, taking in the broad streaming tie. But how affected! How theatrical!

With Fru Dahl he came forward and was presented. “Herr Olsen, Herr Axel Olsen.” To Helga Crane that meant nothing. The man, however, interested her. For an imperceptible second he bent over her hand. After that he looked intently at her for what seemed to her an incredibly rude length of time from under his heavy drooping lids. At last, removing his stare of startled satisfaction, he wagged his leonine head approvingly.

“Yes, you’re right. She’s amazing. Marvelous,” he muttered.

Everyone else in the room was deliberately not staring. About Helga there sputtered a little staccato murmur of manufactured conversation. Meanwhile she could think of no proper word of greeting to the outrageous man before her. She wanted, very badly, to laugh. But the man was as unaware of her omission as of her desire. His words flowed on and on, rising and rising. She tried to follow, but his rapid Danish eluded her. She caught only words, phrases, here and there. “Superb eyes … color … neck column … yellow … hair … alive … wonderful …” His speech was for Fru Dahl. For a bit longer he lingered before the silent girl, whose smile had become a fixed aching mask, still gazing appraisingly, but saying no word to her, and then moved away with Fru Dahl, talking rapidly and excitedly to her and her husband, who joined them for a moment at the far side of the room. Then he was gone as suddenly as he had come.

“Who is he?” Helga put the question timidly to a hovering young army officer, a very smart captain just back from Sweden. Plainly he was surprised.

“Herr Olsen, Herr Axel Olsen, the painter. Portraits, you know.”

“Oh,” said Helga, still mystified.

“I guess he’s going to paint you. You’re lucky. He’s queer. Won’t do everybody.”

“Oh, no. I mean, I’m sure you’re mistaken. He didn’t ask, didn’t say anything about it.”

The young man laughed. “Ha-ha! That’s good! He’ll arrange that with Herr Dahl. He evidently came just to see you, and it was plain that he was pleased.” He smiled approvingly.

“Oh,” said Helga again. Then at last she laughed. It was so funny. The great man hadn’t addressed a word to her. Here she was, a curiosity, a stunt, at which people came and gazed. And was she to be treated like a secluded young miss, a Danish
frøkken
, not to be consulted personally even on matters affecting her personally? She, Helga Crane, who almost all her life had looked after herself, was she now to be looked after by Aunt Katrina and her husband? It didn’t seem real.

It was late, very late, when finally she climbed into the great bed after having received an auntly kiss. She lay long awake reviewing the events of the crowded day. She was happy again. Happiness covered her like the lovely quilts under which she rested. She was mystified too. Her aunt’s words came back to her. “You’re young and a foreigner and—and different.” Just what did that mean, she wondered. Did it mean that the difference was to be stressed, accented? Helga wasn’t so sure that she liked that. Hitherto all her efforts had been toward similarity to those about her.

“How odd,” she thought sleepily, “and how different from America!”

The young officer had been right in his surmise. Axel Olsen was going to paint Helga Crane. Not only was he going to paint her, but he was to accompany her and her aunt on their shopping expedition. Aunt Katrina was frankly elated. Uncle Poul was also visibly pleased. Evidently they were not above kowtowing to a lion. Helga’s own feelings were mixed; she was amused, grateful, and vexed. It had all been decided and arranged without her, and, also, she was a little afraid of Olsen. His stupendous arrogance awed her.

The day was an exciting, not easily to be forgotten one. Definitely, too, it conveyed to Helga her exact status in her new environment. A decoration. A curio. A peacock. Their progress through the shops was an event; an event for Copenhagen as well as for Helga Crane. Her dark, alien appearance was to most people an astonishment. Some stared surreptitiously, some openly, and some stopped dead in front of her in order more fully to profit by their stares.
“Den Sorte”
dropped freely, audibly, from many lips.

The time came when she grew used to the stares of the population. And the time came when the population of Copenhagen grew used to her outlandish presence and ceased to stare. But at the end of that first day it was with thankfulness that she returned to the sheltering walls of the house on Maria Kirkplads.

They were followed by numerous packages, whose contents all had been selected or suggested by Olsen and paid for by Aunt Katrina. Helga had only to wear them. When they were opened and the things spread out upon the sedate furnishings of her chamber, they made a rather startling array. It was almost in a mood of rebellion that Helga faced the fantastic collection of garments incongruously laid out in the quaint, stiff, pale old room. There were batik dresses in which mingled indigo, orange, green, vermilion, and black; dresses of velvet and chiffon in screaming colors, blood red, sulphur yellow, sea green; and one black and white thing in striking combination. There was a black Manila shawl strewn with great scarlet and lemon flowers, a leopard-skin coat, a glittering opera cape. There were turbanlike hats of metallic silks, feathers, and furs, strange jewelry, enameled or set with odd semiprecious stones, a nauseous Eastern perfume, shoes with dangerously high heels. Gradually Helga’s perturbation subsided in the unusual pleasure of having so many new and expensive clothes at one time. She began to feel a little excited, incited.

Incited. That was it, the guiding principle of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an impression, a voluptuous impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a little while she gave herself up
wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired. Against the solid background of Herr Dahl’s wealth and generosity she submitted to her aunt’s arrangement of her life to one end, the amusing one of being noticed and flattered. Intentionally she kept to the slow, faltering Danish. It was, she decided, more attractive than a nearer perfection. She grew used to the extravagant things with which Aunt Katrina chose to dress her. She managed, too, to retain that air of remoteness which had been in America so disastrous to her friendships. Here in Copenhagen it was merely a little mysterious and added another clinging wisp of charm.

Helga Crane’s new existence was intensely pleasant to her; it gratified her augmented sense of self-importance. And it suited her. She had to admit that the Danes had the right idea. To each his own milieu. Enhance what was already in one’s possession. In America Negroes sometimes talked loudly of this, but in their hearts they repudiated it. In their lives too. They didn’t want to be like themselves. What they wanted, asked for, begged for, was to be like their white overlords. They were ashamed to be Negroes, but not ashamed to beg to be something else. Something inferior. Not quite genuine. Too bad!